


Masks

by C_Sharpe



Category: Darker Than Black
Genre: Canon Compliant, Child Death, Flashbacks, Gen, Identity Issues, Season/Series 01, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-14 17:17:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14140758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/C_Sharpe/pseuds/C_Sharpe
Summary: When one lives their entire life wearing one mask or another, what lies beneath?





	Masks

**Author's Note:**

> I am of the opinion that Hei did some pretty messed up things in South America to gain a nickname like "the black god of death". I also think those things haunt him more than he lets on. Hei is having a bad day here.

It was one of the dead times. The last operation had concluded to everyone’s satisfaction three days prior. A period of staying out of sight, and out of contact always followed an assignment. The length varied, but it was always an uncomfortable span for the man in room 201. It wasn’t that he enjoyed the work, but the sense of purpose made it easier to keep his thoughts from drifting to darker places. He assumed the others likely looked forward to the time off (though Yin wasn’t likely to have much of an opinion either way, even during an operation she rarely left the tobacco stand). Huang had made it clear he detested the company he was forced to keep, and Mao was every bit as lazy as a true feline, dozing in the sun whenever a spare moment presented itself.

 

As afternoon bled into evening, he stood at the kitchen counter, chopping vegetables robotically. It impressed people, on the rare occasion he was observed, the skill with which he handled the tools and the ingredients. He’d been doing it for so long, it was a thoughtless act for him now. Dangerous, that. Here, in this dead time, he was stripped of all his masks. The mask of the reaper, the heartless, violent monster. The mask of BK-201, the unfeeling, logical contractor. The mask of Hei, the unquestioning soldier, loyal and efficient. The mask of Li, the student, the innocent. Without those masks, he was nameless. Skinless. He felt as if he was a raw nerve, bared to a harsh wind.

 

The knife slid into the vegetable, easily, almost silently. _A different knife, planted between shoulder blades, hears the strangled, sudden cry of shock _.__  Shakes his head. Chops. Moves the finished product toward the top of the cutting board with the knife expertly. Grabs the radish. _Bones like a bird’s, so fragile as his fingers close on the bobbing throat, bringing an end to her desperate appeals._  

 

He continues. Blinks rapidly to remove the images. The light from the window comes in flashes. _The strobe effect of the automatic rifle in the concrete room. Instants of death, human and contractor alike, frozen in the snapshots of the muzzle flashes _.__  Pushes the next completed vegetable, grabs for the cabbage. Holds it in his palm, sets it on the board. _Palm against the back of the boy’s head, fingers threaded through his hair. Carmine’s power was essential for the mission. She’d have to pay her price. So small, younger than he had been. Draws the knife across the throat, positioned over the bucket, even Amber can’t bear to watch…_

 

It takes him a moment to realize that he’s driven the knife straight through the board and into the counter below. The cabbage is pulp in his shaking grip. Knuckles are white gripping the handle of the knife. With a cry somewhere between rage and despair, he sweeps everything off the counter, and sinks to his knees. He would cry, if he hadn’t spent all his tears years ago. Not for the first time, he looks to the knife, not as a tool, not as a weapon, but as a door. An escape hatch.

 

He turns away. Can’t. He may see a stranger when he looks in the mirror. May have forgotten (buried) the name he was born with, but it changes nothing. Before he ever donned the first mask, before he lost everything, he made a promise. To the only thing he has left. She’s out there, and he has a purpose.

 

Standing, the turns his back to the knife, to the aborted meal. He needs a mask. Needs to hide. He dons the familiar white shirt, green jacket, the easy placid expression of Li. Li the innocent one. The lie he desperately wants to believe, if only for an hour, a moment at a time. Li will take a walk, enjoy the evening in Tokyo. He’ll dine at his favorite ramen shop, lulled into contentment by gossip and family banter. He’ll be Li, who never has to look far to find a smile, Li who waves to his neighbors, Li who makes friends without really trying. Li who walks casually, doesn’t wade knee deep through blood wherever he goes. He’ll be Li as long as he can. As long as they’ll let him.

 

Li exited room 201 with an easy smile on his face, waved to his neighbor leaning on the railing as he descended the stairs, and went to spend his evening in the city, seeming to all the world to be without a care.


End file.
